Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry
(222 words)
[German Version] (1932). The so-called Laymen's Report comprises
Re-Thinking Missions: A Laymen's Inquiry after One Hundred Years, by a commission chaired by W. Hocking, and a seven-volume Supplementary Series, containing detailed reports from the Protestant missions to Asia and their American sponsors. The report, which provoked much controversy, is a masterpiece of missiology (Mission studies) in both method and substance. Written by and for laymen, it sought to define the meaning of Christianity and missions…
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Religion Past and Present
Lay Movement
(1,253 words)
[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Protestantism
I. Catholicism The Catholic lay movement is understood as the joint involvement of Catholic men and women in political, social, and cultural issues of the day, based on premises that have been worked out in discussion and dialogue. The beginnings of the organized Catholic lay movement in Germany came in the middle of the 19th century. In 1848 Franz Adam Lennig founded the first Piusverein für religiöse Freiheit (Pius Association for Religious Freedom,…
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Religion Past and Present
Laynez, Diego
(237 words)
[German Version] (Lainez; 1512, Almazán, Castile – Jan 19, 1565, Rome) studied at the University of Alcalá from 1528 onward (B.A., 1531; M.A., 1532), and later went to Paris, where he soon became the most zealous and closest disciple of Ignatius of Loyola. He did the spiritual exercises and took his vows on Montmartre on Aug 15, 1534. After further theological studies in Paris and Rome and ordination in Venice in 1537, he was dispatched to the Council of Trent in 1546, where he participated in all the Council's sessions. There, he strongly opposed the (Augustinian) doctrine of the
duplex iust…
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Religion Past and Present
Lay Offices
(605 words)
[German Version] In Catholic theology the term “office” is reserved primarily for the office of the ordained, that is, the office of the bishop, the priest, and the deacon (Office VI, 3). In addition, there are traditional ecclesiastical duties, especially in the realms of administration and diakonia, that are performed voluntarily on a full or part-time basis, and that are understood in the broader sense of the word “office.” Officially they are called “services” or “ministries” as distinct from offices. Although biblically the term “laity” refers to all believers in Chris…
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Religion Past and Present
Lay Preaching
(533 words)
[German Version] Because preaching is tied to Scripture and liturgy, the question whether individuals without ordination (and usually also without theological training) may preach in worship always raises the question whether those who preach have special status and how they should be trained. The Methodists have been most consistent in adhering to the insight of the early Reformers that baptism ordains all the faithful through the Holy Spirit. With respect to proclamation of the gospel, however, …
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Religion Past and Present
Layritz, Friedrich
(178 words)
[German Version] (Lairitz; Jan 30, 1808, Nemmersdorf – Mar 18, 1859, Unterschwaningen), Lutheran theologian and hymnologist. After studying theology and philosophy in Leipzig (Dr.phil. 1829) and Erlangen, where he was tutor at the faculty theology from 1833 to 1837, Layritz served as a parish priest in Merkendorf-Hirschlach, Bayreuth (St. Georgen), and Unterschwaningen. In a programmatic “Open Missive” and the edition of compilations of church hymns, Layritz spoke out for a revival of church music…
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Religion Past and Present
Lay Theology, Russian
(358 words)
[German Version] The expression
Russian lay theology is really inadequate to describe a phenomenon that is unique to Russian Orthodoxy. It is neither a theology by and for laity as such nor a theology contrary to the doctrinal decisions reached by episcopal synods. It is in fact antonymic to the Russian scholastic theology that in the 19th century was still strongly shaped by the doctrinal content and ways of thinking of Western Scholasticism and was felt to be cut off from reality. There was a desire…
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Religion Past and Present
Lazarus
(346 words)
[German Version] Lazarus, is a literary figure in Luke and John (Gk from Heb.
Eleazar, “God helps”; cf. Matt 1:15). While John 11:1–12:11 identifies Lazarus as the brother of the sisters Mary and Martha (cf. Luke 10:38ff.), the parable in Luke 16:19–31 portrays him as a fictitious person whose fate after death is contrasted with that of an unnamed rich man. Since the use of a personal name in parables is atypical and unique in the New Testament, the significance of the theophorous sentence-name “Lazarus” (“Go…
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Religion Past and Present
Lazarus, Moritz
(160 words)
[German Version] (Sep 15, 1824, Filehne, Poznán – Apr 13, 1903, Meran), was initially professor at the University of Bern, where he later became director of the department of philosophy and finally rector of the university. In 1873, he was appointed honorary profes-¶ sor at the University of Berlin, while he also lectured at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Colleges and universities, Jewish). Together with his brother-in-law H. Steinthal, he published the journal
Zeitschrift fürVölkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft (1860–1886). In
Ethik des Judenthums (189…
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Religion Past and Present
Leade, Jane
(311 words)
[German Version] (
née Ward; 1623/1624, Norfolk – Aug 19, 1704, London). Born as the twelfth child of a wealthy tobacco trader, Leade soon developed an exceptional religious sensibility and attained a secure faith after years of inner conflict. In 1644, she married the London tradesman William Leade (died 1670). From 1663 onward, she began studying the writings of J. Böhme under the guidance of J. Pordage, in the course of which she came into contact with the Philadelphians. Since the death of her …
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Religion Past and Present
League of Nations
(394 words)
[German Version] The notion of a league of nations – drawn in part from motifs of Judeo-Christian eschatology (Isa 2:2–4) – goes back to widely broadcast plans for an organization devoted to world peace that were developed in the early 14th century (Pierre Dubois), in the 17th century (Maximilien de Sully, W. Penn), and at the beginning of the 18th century (Abbé de St. Pierre), but above all in I. Kant's philosophical tract
Zum ewigen Frieden (1795; ET:
Perpetual Peace, 1915). Against this background, even during World War I but especially in his Fourteen Points of Jan 18,…
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Religion Past and Present
Leander of Seville (Saint)
(235 words)
[German Version] (c. 540, Cartagena, Spain – Mar 13, between 599 and 601 [on this, see Fontane, 113], Seville), was the brother of St. Florentina, of Fulgentius (bishop of Ecija), and of the church father Isidore of Seville. He was the son of an illustrious Romanized family and became archbishop of Seville after the death of Pope Stephen II around 578. He succeeded in converting the Visigoth (Goths) Hermenegild to the Catholic faith, who led an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against his father Leo…
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Religion Past and Present
Learning
(880 words)
[German Version] I. Concept and History – II. The Present – III. Religious Education and Theology
I. Concept and History It has often been observed that the term
learning is highly ambiguous, in large part because until recently it has only been used colloquially. Since ancient times, the shifting concepts of learning have derived from the concepts of teaching and instruction, as well as the concepts of education, formation (Education/Formation), ¶ and school. The concepts of knowledge and understanding (Epistemology) debated in Greek philosophy (Sophistic schoo…
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Religion Past and Present
Learning, Autonomous
(442 words)
[German Version] Both the German term
Freiarbeit (“free work”) and the concept of autonomous ¶ learning have their roots in the pedagogical reform movement (Progressive education). M. Montessori (Montessori education), Peter Petersen, Hugo Gaudig, and Célestine Freinet advocate – with differing emphasis – the basic thesis that learning should be conceived as an open process in which, with self-direction, children (Child/Childhood) and young people (Youth/Adolescence) appropriate what they need for their development (III) and orientation in life. Contemporary approaches t…
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Religion Past and Present
Lebanon
(1,209 words)
[German Version] The name “Lebanon,” if from the Semitic, could be translated as “white” mountain, but it may also be of pre-Semitic origin. The Lebanon Mountains, together with the coastal plain and the Bekaa Valley, constitute the heartland of the modern state of Lebanon. The crest of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains is the border with Syria, which also constitutes the northern boundary. In the south, Israel is the border. With a length of 220 km and a width of 40–70 km, the state of Lebanon has a surface area of 10,400 km2. The highest peak rises to 3,088 m. The majority of the populati…
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Religion Past and Present
Lebbe, Frédéric Marie
(256 words)
[German Version] (also Frédéric-Vincent, Chinese name Lei Mingyuan; Aug 17, 1877, Ghent , Belgium – Jun 24, 1940, Chongqing, China) was one of the most prominent China missionaries of the 20th century. He was ordained priest in Peking in 1901. In 1923, he created the Unio Catholica Iuventutis Sinensis in Paris, and in 1927 the Société des Auxiliaires des Missions ¶ (SAM) in Belgium. Lebbe fought against Europeism and introduced a modern (so-called “Tianjin”) mission strategy. He founded the Chinese-language daily newspaper
Yishibao (Social Welfare) in 1915. In 1928, he founde…
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Religion Past and Present
Lebedev, Aleksey Petrovič
(183 words)
[German Version] (1845, Governorate of Moscow – Jul 14, 1908, Moscow), earned his Dr.theol. at the Moscow Spiritual Academy (Moscow: II) in 1879 with a dissertation on “The Ecumenical Councils of the 4th and 5th Centuries.” He was professor of the history of the Early Church at the Academy from 1874 to 1896 and accepted an appointment at the University of Moscow in 1908. Lebedev is one of the most prominent representatives of the Historical School of Russian theology (A. Gorsky). In his patristic …
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Religion Past and Present
Le Bouthillier de Rancé, Armand-Jean
(13 words)
[German Version] Rancé, Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de
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Religion Past and Present